Nature Communications (Jun 2019)

Senescent cells evade immune clearance via HLA-E-mediated NK and CD8+ T cell inhibition

  • Branca I. Pereira,
  • Oliver P. Devine,
  • Milica Vukmanovic-Stejic,
  • Emma S. Chambers,
  • Priya Subramanian,
  • Neil Patel,
  • Alex Virasami,
  • Neil J. Sebire,
  • Veronica Kinsler,
  • Alexis Valdovinos,
  • Claude Jourdan LeSaux,
  • João F. Passos,
  • Antony Antoniou,
  • Malcom H. A. Rustin,
  • Judith Campisi,
  • Arne N. Akbar

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10335-5
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 10, no. 1
pp. 1 – 13

Abstract

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Senescent cells increase with ageing and may cause inflammatory conditions, but how this accumulation is mediated is still unclear. Here the authors show that senescent cells express HLA-E to suppress NKG2A-mediated natural killer and CD8 T cell activation to avoid targeted elimination, while blocking NKG2A helps promote immunity against senescent cells.